Letters

The fascism in futurism

Alex Danchev manages to get to the last paragraph of his article on Marinetti and futurism before the word fascism appears ("Workers of the mind, unite", 6 June). And when he does, it seems almost incidental: "Predictably, he saw in fascism the possibility of realising futurist dreams. He was soon disillusioned. His own relationship with Mussolini quickly curdled."

No mention here of Marinetti's Fasci Futuristi party for which he stood for election in 1919, his 1924 pamphlet Futurismo e Fascismo, his joining of Mussolini's fascist party, his volunteering in 1935 for the invasion of Abyssinia, his fighting in the 1942 Italian campaign on the Don, or his joining of Mussolini's last stand in his puppet fascist republic at Salò.

Everything about Marinetti is redolent of fascism. His relationship with Mussolini cooled because Mussolini compromised with conservative institutions and was embarrassed by Marinetti's radicalism. Danchev's tone typifies a long tradition of underplaying the connection. Adrian HolmeLondon

Models of left-wing fiction

Several cheers for Thomas Jones's assessment of Eric Ambler's thrillers ("Dangerous games", 6 June). Yes, Ambler ended up quite wealthy and not particularly on the left. But as Jones notes, the novels he wrote from the 1930s to the 1950s were a different matter - models of left-wing crime fiction. We can celebrate and read Ambler for those books without feeling that we need to engage in a lengthy denunciation of him.Keith FlettLondon

More important than sex

In his discussion of imagism, Ian Sansom writes of TE Hulme "having sex ... at Piccadilly Circus tube station" ("Hucksters, mavericks and visionaries", 6 June). More important to the subject at hand, however, is Hulme's publication in Harold Monro's magazine Poetry and Drama of an article on contemporary German poetry ("German Chronicle", June 1914). This article includes quotations, in German, from a poem by Else Lasker-Schüler, and the whole of one of Georg Heym's Berlin sonnets. Both poets can be considered precursors of imagism. The war came two months after Hulme's article appeared, and any discussion of the influence of German writing on English poetry was wiped off the literary map.Nicholas JacobsLondon

I should know, I'm Cuban

There's one detail in Donald Sassoon's review of The Rise and Fall of Communism with which I don't agree ("End of empire", 6 June). In the west the name communism has come to symbolise the socio-economic model that operated in the former USSR and its allies. Nothing could be further from the truth. No state has ever gone beyond the first stage of transition to socialism. I should know because I am Cuban. Private property has never ceased to exist in my country.Mario López-GoicoecheaLondon

Pathological

Peter Hitchens (Letters, 6 June) tries to use the shield of free speech to get away with his tendentious and muddled interpretation of the word "homophobic" by attempting to separate out attitudes to the act and to the person. The word means fear of or hostility to homosexuality and homosexuals alike (OED), in parallel with, for example, Islamophobia and xenophobia. To many people, such words imply attitudes that are offensive and hence justifiably carry an implication of fault. There is no free speech issue here.Nick AdderleyLondon

The saddest line

Following your piece by Matthew Evans ("Guru-in-chief", 6 June), I greatly enjoyed the BBC2 Arena programme on TS Eliot on Saturday evening. But I would have liked more made of the music at the end of "Prufrock": the fall, the rise to a crescendo, the fall, the sadness. Falling from "No I am not Prince Hamlet", through Osric to the fool, to growing old and rolled trouser bottoms. The stir of earlier "do I dare"s; the rising resolve, "I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach". The excited rise to the crescendo: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each". And the collapse to reality of "to each". Read it aloud this way, and you will agree that the saddest line in English poetry is: "I do not think that they will sing to me".John LagoeGrasmere, Cumbria

Up, up and away

I would like to have seen Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale included in "Ten of the best: balloon flights" (30 May). Sophia, having eloped from Bursley with Gerald, is in Paris for the siege of 1870-71. She has to watch Chirac, the man she has become fond of but cannot love, try to escape from the Prussians by balloon in order to preserve his journalism. His decision defines the limitations of their relationship, but it also gives Bennett, who loved France and knew it well, the opportunity to describe this dangerous mission in convincingly realistic detail: of the 65 balloons that left Paris during the siege, two were not heard of. This was the first of the two.John ChambersBath

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